Since 1982, Diane Wagenhals has pursued a mission in the field of family education: to promote emotional health in families. She is a published author, trainer, and guest speaker. She is the author of PREN's Parents Reference Guide: 25 Essential Tools and Tips You Need for Emotionally Healthy Parenting in addition to many other articles. In 2006, she won the Please Touch Museum's "Great Friend to Kids Award" for Education and most recently accepted the "Educating Communities for Parenting" award on IFP's behalf.  Her work includes designing and presenting two workshops to a total of over 300 Kindergarten teachers in 2006 and 2007 through Philadelphia's KidZone Program with Dr. Bruce D. Perry.  In 2007, she also co-authored and presented curriculum used by Multiplying Connections to present basic trauma information to systems throughout Philadelphia.

      Drawing upon her past experiences an elementary school teacher, a childbirth educator, a family therapist and founder of a parenting education company, Ms. Wagenhals  currently serves as a Program Director for Lakeside Educational Network where her responsibilities include overseeing programming and curriculum design for the Institute for Professional Education and Development (IPED) program, which provides continuing professional development for professionals and educators through training and consulting, and for the Institute for Family Professionals (IFP) program, which provides training that has impacted over 800 family service professionals from contracted agencies within the Department of Human Services of the City of Philadelphia. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Elementary Education from West Chester University and performed graduate work at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Maryland in Rehabilitation Counseling. She received a Masters of Education Degree in Psycho-Educational Processes, specializing in Family Therapy, from Temple University. She is also a Certified Family Life Educator.

      Ms. Wagenhals received certification as a Pennsylvania PQAS instructor in 2007.  She also designed curriculum for the United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania's Early Childhood Education projects and two courses for St. Joseph's University:  "Social, Emotional and Motor Development of Young Children" and "Trauma in Infancy and Early Childhood." In January 2010, she also began designing curriculum for Lakeside's Education for Transition program (LET) as well as a home visitation component for the Philadelphia's Prison System.  In this program, incarcerated adults participate in training and ongoing support to promote greater emotional stability and preparation for re-entry into families and communities and receive ongoing support and educational opportunities upon their release. Key to the success of this project is including fundamental trauma information so inmates and their families can better understand the neurobiological reasons for violent and other types of criminal behaviors and to receive support and specific strategies for changing the destructive patterns that brought them into the prison system in the first place.

       We are honored to have Ms. Wagenhals join our group of Fellows.